Insects In The Home

Home hasn't been an all too great place to hang out these days. With the construction going on downstairs and the endless 'trespassing' of flying insects into our flat, I haven't really been able to hang around at home with ease and with the windows wide open. So I made it a point to hang out outside home for quite sometime today. And the only way for me to achieve this is to set out as early as possible for just about anywhere, though most likely, it would be the city. And so this morning I took the opportunity to leave our flat with Kenji who left for work for his noon shift at about 10:30 in the a.m. (not very early I know but still quite early for me) where I ended up accompanying Kenji to the CBD as Kenji made his way to his workplace. Below are some pictures taken recently, which I include here in this post for illustrations. So go check them out.



Picture above shows a truck and a worker in the construction site. The construction is going on right below our flat. This picture was taken a few weeks back when the construction was at its early stage. Now though there have been more (digging) done to the site. You might want to imagine what the area is like now with all the rain frequently penetrating the area.

On the left is a grasshopper about 12 cm long. It got into our 4th storey flat one night through one of the opened windows in the living room. It made some 'disgusting noise' as it hopped and flew around our flat. So I had to make Kenji, who was in the kitchen and cooking at that time, to stop doing whatever he was doing then and come to my rescue instead :)

Flying insects like the grasshopper have been entering our home almost every other day each time the windows are opened. The grasshopper shown above though was one such rare 'intruder'. Usually we would get bees, hornets and wasps soaring fiercely into our home. Typically, too, they would appear rather lost and sometimes behave in a manner as if they were trapped and have flown into a wrong site. The ones that flew into our home fly single-handedly. They are more often than not rather huge as compared to the ordinary-looking Singapore stinging insects that I have seen before. And for that, I suppose they must have originated from the park located close to our flat.

I don't know about Kenji though, but I do get terrified whenever one bee or hornet or wasp starts flying into our home. Not only am I not able to tell which species of the Hymenoptera the flying insect belongs to, but also I find it rather hard to find out if these insects really need to be feared. So each time a hymenopterous insect flies in, I would, most of the time, run to my bedroom and hide behind the door. Subsequently I would leave myself a small gap to check out on it if it has 'managed to find its way back out' after flying into our home. So far though, I have never been stung by any of these harmful-looking flying insects, so I am just grateful for that. But of course, with the construction now going on downstairs (pic above), I bet there will be more than just those kind of insects coming into our home this time. Well, what can I say, these insects need a habitat after all. And they will certainly come around to look for a new home now that their habitat has been destroyed.

So, having been less at ease at home these days, I ended up accompanying Kenji all the way to his workplace today - repeated piece of information for those who missed it, that is. I left home early with Kenji who left for his noon shift just so I could have longer time to spend outside. Besides, I do get pretty lazy and less keen to leave home typically once noon arrives and I am not yet set to go anywhere outside. So the picture below shows you where I hung out and what I had for lunch today.



Today, I had a bowl (can't quite see the bowl - it is at the bottom left in the foreground of the pic - can you see it?) of soto and a glass of teh tarik. Lunch today was early (minutes ahead of noon) and at a coffeeshop located just next to Kenji's workplace. Typical of coffeeshops in Singapore, lunch today costed me only S$2.50 + S$0.80 = S$3.30 Really cheap, isn't it? But given such affordable price, there was definitely something up for me to balance it off with. To be honest, lunch at that coffeeshop wasn't very comfortable. Firstly, I was all alone and secondly, the coffeeshop was patronized by mostly older men. But I guess I couldn't care much about it then. I was more preoccupied with the idea that my day had already started. And unlike the rest of my recent days, it started in the CBD and I've got the rest of the day to think about how to spend it! Thanks to all the discomfort at home, I am up and about earlier than usual. And like some time ago, I am once again motivated to go further than for just some groceries in the neighborhood mall.